On Sleepless Roads The Sleepless Go
by shockblanketsherlock
Summary: "He still misses Sherlock in the quiet places." John recovers after Reichenbach. Slowly.  My Sherlockmas gift for mutuisanimis on LJ. Prompt was 'John, post-Reichenbach, inspired by 'Hear You Me' by Jimmy Eat World. Listen while you read, if possible :


**i. WINTER **

He still misses Sherlock in the quiet places; park benches and bleak motorway service stations, alone at tables for two in coffee shops and the old, familiar taste of cappuccinos. He misses him in snatches of Schubert on the radio and the stark, empty neatness of his new apartment when he arrives home at two in the morning. He misses him most of all in the heavy near-stillness of the night; London never quite slips over the edge of sleep, but the dull murmur of distant traffic is rarely enough to drown out the echoing "_Goodbye, John_," in his mind.

"I barely know anyone around here," he tells the glossy headstone, seated on the frozen ground in front of it and kneading his forehead. "Just Mike, and Molly, and Gr-" He stops, swallows; he's barely spoken to Lestrade since the funeral. He doesn't _blame_ the inspector, exactly, but it's hard to forgive him, all the same. "And Mrs Hudson," he says, instead, because he thinks Sherlock would like to know about Mrs Hudson, if he's up there, and John thinks that if an _up there_ exists then Sherlock must surely be in it, because the alternative is unbearable. Inconceivable.

There was a life before Sherlock, he remembers, and presumably that means it is possible to have one after, but he's not sure where to go, or how to begin; Sherlock gave him that, last time.

Baker Street. Somewhere to go.

Sherlock. Someone to go home _to._

Not now.

He leans his forehead against the headstone and whispers "London is empty," against the cool marble, just as an ambulance begins to scream in the distance, and then he sighs, hollowly, because it's so blatantly self-indulgent and _not true_. He can hear Sherlock in his mind saying "_A city with a population of more than seven point eight million people hardly qualifies as empty, John, however far Anderson lowers their combined IQ_," and he tips his head back and smiles, a little bit.

"Thank you, Sherlock," he says, because he's never said it before, not _really, _and then it starts to rain, sweet and heavy on his cheeks.

**ii. SPRING**

Spring is long and slow, stretching out stiff branches dotted with shy new leaves. The rain finally begins to ease, and h e doesn't expect it, but somewhere between the lengthening days and the first hints of pale blossom in the London streets he's forced to conclude that life goes _on, _old seasons fading and new ones rising with unsteady limbs.

He's proud of himself, in a distant sort of way; he fires his therapist again and opens a private laparoscopy surgery with the money Sherlock left him and hires several assistants - more than he needs, really, but it feels good to surround himself with people who talk about healing instead of about death. He doesn't charge much - it seems mercenary, somehow, to demand that people empty their bank accounts just to avoid spending months on the NHS waiting list - but low prices mean he gets enough work to live comfortably. It's a good life, really.

"Laparoscopy suits you," Stamford says, once, during the Saturday football match. "Minimally invasive. Tiny little incisions. Cutting your way inside, fixing everything, but they'll barely even notice the scars, afterwards." He leans across the bar, trying to catch the barman's eye, but Walcott's just taken possession of the ball and the man's eyes are glued to the plasma screen.

John laughs, lukewarm yet genuine, and says, "Minimally invasive surgery suits me? Mike, I invaded _Afghanistan_."

For a moment, he remembers Sherlock laughing, exhilarated, in the hallway, saying just that, and then he pushes the memory away, because thoughts like that are private, for the in-between times when he's alone, before the surgery opens or in the minutes between getting in bed and falling asleep.

"I wouldn't put it like that," says Stamford, quietly serious, and then Arsenal score with less than three minutes to full time and John spills his beer everywhere and swears, and it's such an _ordinary_ day and John's ridiculously grateful that the earth is still going around the sun.

Stamford leaves to pick up his kids after the match, and John tips the barman and wanders outside into the sunshine, thinking about the patient he needs to assess on Monday afternoon. That leads to thinking about abdomens and gall bladders and _that_ leads to thinking about bags of thumbs in the salad drawer, and he laughs at the memory of Mrs Hudson's story about that car driver who fainted when he saw the contents of the open fridge.

It's not a surprise, this time, when he ends up wandering across London, warm spring sun on the back of his neck and his coat slung over one arm as he swings open the churchyard gate and follows the familiar route to Sherlock's grave, where there are rarely flowers, but he doesn't think the detective would mind.

"I wonder what you'd think of me, these days," he says, fingers playing along the engraved gold letters of his best friend's name. "I'm lucky, really, you know. I've got a good job, I've got Mike for evenings. Murray's coming up to visit in a month or two." He hesitates. "Harry's been sober for two months now. She's given up on Clara. It's good for her, accepting she's not coming back."

There's the trudge of footsteps on gravel and he looks up to see a stooping old man in a flat cap, his shabby coat pulled close around him even in the April sun, trudging along the gravel path a few feet away. He waits until the man puts several gravestones between them before he continues.

"Yeah. So. Harry's staying good, no more stomach pumps at four in the morning. We haven't fought in ages. I suppose it's - it's made us strong." He's pleased when his voice doesn't crack on the last word. "I'm proud of her, Sherlock. I haven't actually told her that, but…" He leans forward, awkwardly, touching his forehead to the marble, the way he used to touch foreheads with Sherlock, sometimes.

The headstone is warm from the sun, but he stays like that, ghosting his lips against the engraved letters of Sherlock's name as he murmurs,. "Maybe I should call. You know. To tell her. Instead of - instead of assuming I'll get another chance."

**iii. SUMMER**

It's the first time since the fall that he's managed to phone dim sum and it makes him feel queasy, remembering Sherlock, but Murray _asked _for Chinese and the man did save his life in Afghanistan, so he supposes it seems like bad form to refuse on the grounds of a few old memories. _Good _memories.

They laze companionably in the afternoon sun streaming through John's window, waiting for the delivery boy, laughing about nothing. Death seems ridiculously far away, now, though he can't quite adjust to the sight of Murray without a backdrop of blank blue sky and swirling Afghanistan dust.

They talk about Murray's wife, and John's new dog Gladstone, asleep under the table. They talk about the music awards and Formula One and a million other _ordinary _things like the Six Nations and the time that Irish player should have had a yellow card instead of a red, though John disagrees, and they argue the toss good-naturedly until the delivery boy arrives. John tips him double because the sun is shining.

Eventually, inevitably, Murray asks him about Sherlock, and John grins and says, "Look at this," and pulls out his wallet and the photo of Sherlock posing with his arm around John on the case that took them to Paris, their eyes warm and bright and alive. It's his favourite, because Sherlock is wearing one of John's shirts and it's a little too loose on the shoulders, and John's eyes are slightly creased from the glare on the lens of the camera. It's

The food cools while they talk about him, and he doesn't mind, really.

"This is how I remember us," he says, easily, fingers rubbing the outline of Sherlock's relaxed, laughing face. "God, he was - he was _brilliant, _Murray, I wish you'd met him."

They sit in companionable silence for a while, until Murray remembers they asked for fortune cookies, and dives for the bag. "On sleepless roads, the sleepless go," he reads, as John swallows his last mouthful of char siu. "God, these things get more cryptic every time."

_I can predict the fortune cookies._ John laughs, more at the memory than at Murray, and pours himself another cider.

**iv. AUTUMN **

In September, the leaves are turning scarlet and gold and crunching underfoot as John meanders through life, warmer and more comfortable than he has been in a long time. Sherlock still glows in some snug part of his chest, quiet but clear and unforgotten. He pipes up in John's mind, sometimes, making observations and deductions about the patients who come in for this operation and that.

He doesn't realise he's wandered into the graveyard at first; he's come by a slightly convoluted route, and the shape of the church from this angle is unfamiliar, but the feeling is the same.

It's the first time he's seen most of the gravestones on this side of the church, so he dawdles slightly. These graves are older than those on Sherlock's side; cracked and moss-covered and with no flowers on them. Nobody left to remember them, he realises, squatting down impulsively and rubbing the moss off one of the dates. 1859 - 1930.

Curious, he begins to scrub at the rest of the moss and lichen with his shirt-sleeve; the name is indecipherable apart from a few random vowels, but there is a quote - possibly Biblical, he thinks, from the language, and he works at it until he can read it, dim and eroded, but still there, decipherable:

**May angels lead you into paradise; upon your arrival, may the martyrs receive you **

**and lead you to the holy city of Jerusalem.**

**May the ranks of angels receive you,**

**and with Lazarus, the poor man,**

**may you have eternal rest.**

"Eternal rest," he murmurs. "Ha. Not if Sherlock's up there with you, mate." He pats the stranger's headstone, slightly awkwardly, and moves on.

He's still not sure he believes in God, not after Afghanistan, but the words are still in his mind as he reaches Sherlock's grave and sits down, as usual - the grass is shorter now, here, and he wonders dimly how the caretaker navigates the haphazard angles on the side with the older headstones, leaning different ways against decades of wind and rain.

He is quiet for a long, long time, hearing the birds chatter in the trees. He's always dimly surprised when they sing; he's heard that there are no birds in places like Auschwitz - but then, he supposes, this isn't Auschwitz; it's the middle of London, and there's no reason why the birds shouldn't sing if they want to, because the world keeps turning; new life for an old earth and old sky.

"May angels lead you in, Sherlock," he says, softly, and then he lies back in the new-cut grass and watches wisps of grey cloud skimming across the blue. "May angels lead you in."

**v. WINTER**

**[EPILOGUE]**

"I shouldn't let you do this," says Mycroft's voice from the door, and Sherlock doesn't even make the effort to turn around or make a scathing remark about his brother's weight.

"You shouldn't have let me do most of the things I've done in the past thirty years," he points out, though, for the sake of it. "Don't begrudge me the least harmful of all of them."

"_Least harmf - _Sherlock, you cannot be serious." Mycroft crosses the room - cupboard, really, Sherlock thinks, and a pretty damp one at that - and stands above him. "Give it to me."

"No." Sherlock grips the box. "This is the only way I ever hear his voice, Mycroft. You installed surveillance in my flat _and_ tried to get him to spy on me _and _sent Anderson in with Lestrade on multiple pointless drugs busts that ruined my sock index and most of my experiments. I'm allowed to bug my own grave."

Mycroft says nothing; leans forward, presses _play_. John's voice fills the room, crackling and distant beneath the static of the recording.

"_May angels lead you in, Sherlock. May angels lead you in."_

There is silence for a moment that stretches into minutes, until Mycroft says, carefully, "Even angels fall, Sherlock."

"Go _away_, Mycroft."

"I want your _word_, Sherlock, that you won't contact him until it's safe. And I _do _hope that this is not a two-way radio, because the last thing he needs is to hear your voice coming out of your _grave-vase_. Let John _live, _Sherlock_._"

"_If you were dying, if you were murdered, in the very last seconds, what would you say?"_

"_Please, God. Let me live."_

"_Use your imagination."_

"_I don't have to."_

It's enough. Sherlock jerks his head once in acquiescence; Mycroft's face is pinched, but he hands back the little box. Sherlock grips it tightly in his lap.

Mycroft watches him for a long while, then turns and leaves, silent as the grave.


End file.
